perfect pie crust

21Jul

My husband is a pie-man. Unfortunately, I am a pie, cake, cookie, doughnut, candy-woman (but that’s another story:) ). So I make a lot of pies: fresh raspberry in the summer, apple in the fall and rhubarb whenever I can get my hands on it, just to name a few.

I have a secret ingredient in my pie dough. Vodka! Well, it’s actually Cook’s Illustrated secret ingredient. This is the most flaky crust you will ever make. And the fact that it rolls out like playdough makes it all the better. It really is foolproof!

Perfect Pie Crust

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. sugar

12 Tbsp. butter, chilled

1/2 cup shortening

1/4 cup ice water

1/4 cup vodka

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, sugar and salt in a mixer. Add butter and shortening (for best results, chill butter and use a cheese grater to make small pieces). Mix until it is pea-sized pieces. Add remaining cup of flour. Drizzle in vodka and water and mix just until combined.

Form into 2 balls. Flatten into a disc, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Okay, here we go….I’m making this tonight for our pumpkin pie dessert for Thanksgiving. I even took a swig for good luck as I was baking. I’m not exactly positive that taking a swig equals good luck, but I’m totally going with it. 🙂
Being the big alcohol drinkers that we are (note: sarcasm), we only had vanilla vodka. I’m not sure how that will change the taste in the end, but I’m looking forward to trying!
And this was WAY easy to make…I don’t even think I needed to chill it before rolling. Nice. 🙂